Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV

Volume One.- I. The Police of Provisioning.- The state and subsistence, the police and the consumer.- The notion of police.- The structure of police.- Police rivalries, Paris versus France.- The police from below.- II. The Regulations and the Regulators.- The police view of the grain trade, monopoly, and the just price.- The rules of the trade.- The application of the rules.- The police of provisioning in the eighteenth century.- The radical departure.- III. The Origins of Liberty.- Grain liberalism and enlightenment.- Physiocracy, agromania, and the “economic years” (1750–70).- The liberty lobby.- The government prepares the reforms.- Silhouette (1759).- Bertin(1759–63).- Laverdy (1763–68).- Choiseul.- Why the government risked liberty.- The thesis of circumstances.- The thesis of conspiracy.- The government and the new political economy.- Political economy and the nation.- Political economy and the parlements.- The thesis of fiscality.- The pacte de famine.- The royal thesis.- IV. The Response to Liberalization: Theory and Practice.- Early criticism of the liberal system (1763–64).- The Parisian municipality.- Joly de Fleury.- The state-of-the-nation.- The idea of abundance.- The parlements and the liberal laws.- The storm after the calm (1764–70).- Women rioters.- Merchants beware!.- The forces of order and disorder collaborate.- Police anomie and anger.- V. Forcing Grain to be Free: The Government Holds the Line.- Laverdy and the people.- Laverdy and the local police.- Laverdy and the “grand” police.- The price rise.- Encouraging speculation.- Laverdy’s liberalism.- Unexpected disgrace (1768).- VI. The Reforms and the Grain Trade.- Reform and dearth.- Exports.- The fruits of liberalization.- Domestic grain trade.- “Abuses”.- Grain fever and new faces.- Recruitment.- Paris.- Meaux.- Other registries.- The sinister “companies”.- VII. Paris.- Quarantine.- Paris and the hinterland.- Incipient panic.- A “critical” time (1768).- Wallposters and sedition.- Misery, crime, and charity.- Sartine seeks grain.- The Paris police and the liberal ministry.- The police and the bakers.- Crisis and subsistence innovation.- Helping bakers help themselves.- VIII. The Royal Trump.- The beginnings of the Paris grain fund (1750–60).- Malisset.- The “famine pact” contract (1765).- Leray de Chaumont and the guarantors,.- Corbeil.- The company “royalized” (1767).- Rumors and calumnies.- The quality of the king’s grain and flour.- The company attacked from the inside and the outside.- Maynon d’Invau, Daure, and the end of the king’s grain (1769).- Malisset’s resilience.- The royal “visa”.- Leprevostde Beaumont, hero.- Denouncing the famine pact (1768).- Conspiratorial mentality and political consciousness.- Leprevost: social critic and political theorist.- The liberals and the plot accusations.- The critique of royal victualing, 403..- Volume Two.- IX. The government, the parlements, and the battle Over liberty: I.- The Paris Parlement and the unfolding crisis (1767).- Rouen’s violent turn-about (1767–68).- The letters patent of November 1768.- A séance de flagellation: the Assembly of General Police (November 1768).- Vox populi.- Louis XV and the Paris Parlement brawl (1769).- The meaning of parlementary opposition.- X. The government, the parlements, and the battle Over liberty: II.- The antiliberal parlements: brittle solidarities.- The case of Rouen.- The liberal parlements: riposte and counter of Tensive (1768–70).- The Parlement of Dauphiné.- The Estates of Languedoc.- The Parlement of Languedoc.- The Parlement of Provence.- The rebuttal of the économists.- The ministry buoyed.- General economic crisis (1770).- XI. From Political Economy To Police: The Return to Apprehensive Paternalism.- Terray’s liberalism.- Spring and summer riots (1770).- Eating grass and dying of hunger.- The “subsistence of Paris”.- The royal arrêt of July 1770 bans exports.- The triumphant revenge of the Paris Parlement (August 1770).- Monopolists beware!.- Maupeou and the parlements: the constitutional crisis and the crisis over liberalization (1770–71).- The Brittany affair and liberalization.- Terray’s grain law (December 1770).- Consumers versus producers.- Controlling the “general subsistence”.- Savoir equals pouvoir.- XII. Policing the General Subsistence, 1771–1774.- The parlements and Terray’s law (1771).- Enforcing the law: moderation and tolerance.- A nightmare of chaos.- The Midi’s Flour War.- “The general and literal execution” of the law.- The laboureur as villain.- Laboureur opulence.- Illicit exports.- Problems in the south and southwest: Bordeaux.- The Parlement of Grenoble.- The Parlement of Aix.- The Parlement of Toulouse.- Antiphysiocracy.- Galiani’s “bomb” (1770).- The “dangerous sect”.- Galiani refuted.- The Bagarre.- Morellet versus Diderot.- Turgot’s letters to Terray on the grain trade (1770).- XIII. The King’s Grain and the Retreat from Liberalization.- The king’s grain at the end of 1769.- Terray’s régie: Doumerc and Sorin.- 1770: improvisations.- Pascaud.- The régie (1771–1774),.- Planning.- The régie’s purchases.- The régie’s public relations.- Terray’s pledges.- Doumerc and Sorin as managers.- The régie’s agents.- Sales and accounts.- Guys and Company.- Embastillé;.- Guys and the régie.- Doumerc-Sorin versus Malisset.- The reputation of the king’s grain.- The famine pact persuasion.- Bethmann.- The Almanach royal.- A new king and a new ministry (1774).- Turgot’s crusade against police and paternalism.- St.-Prest.- Turgot proclaims liberty.- September 1774.- Dismantling the régie.- The régie indicted.- Flour War.- Albert interrogates Doumerc.- The fate of Doumerc and Sorin.- Terray versus Turgot.- Conclusion.